


First Light

by May_Seward



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Allura is homesick, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Late Night Conversations, MaySeward's Femslash February 2019, Romelle has nightmares, set between seasons 7 and 8, there are minor coffee machine shenanigans, written for femslash february 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-03
Updated: 2019-02-03
Packaged: 2019-10-21 13:58:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17644130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/May_Seward/pseuds/May_Seward
Summary: ‘You have nightmares,’ Allura said.‘Yes, I suppose.’ Romelle set her now empty cup in the sink. ‘Why are you up?’‘I couldn’t sleep.’‘Nightmares?’Allura shook her head. ‘I just miss home.’My Femslash February day 2: Sunrise





	First Light

Allura couldn’t sleep the night after she was discharged from the Garrison hospital. The rest of the paladins had all returned to their homes, and Allura was escorted to her new quarters and left alone. It was a temporary situation, she knew, but she couldn’t help but feel hollow at the empty silence of it.

Two years ago – or at least, it _felt_ like two years to her – she was still living in the room she’d had all her life on Altea. Then, she had lost her home, her family, her planet, and lived in the Castle of Lions, her father’s battleship, and that was familiar. Some of her earliest memories of her childhood took place on her father’s castleship and in the face of the overwhelming sorrow of losing her true home, she had taken solace in the fact that she wasn’t in a totally alien place. She had already been used to the hum of the Castle’s engines as she slept, or the way something as simple as the lights and doors worked.

Then the Castle of Lions had been destroyed by a man she had thought she loved, and the only familiar place she had left to cling to was the Blue Lion. Allura’s connection to Blue made it easier; she was familiar and comforting, and with passengers, (and bored Paladins always on the comms) Allura was always within shouting distance of someone.

Her new quarters were impersonal, lonely, in a way she hadn’t had before. Sitting on her new immaculately made bed, it hit her, truly for the first time, that everyone on her team had returned home except her. Allura didn’t have that option.

She wondered if the ghosts of Altea would ever stop haunting her steps, catching up to her in her worst moments.

She made it only a few vargas of tossing and turning before she got up, dressed in her new orange and white Garrison uniform, and headed out. The Garrison complex was mostly silent and dark. Periodic patrols of soldiers nodded to her as they passed but didn’t question her- Allura had the feeling that she intimidated some of them.

Eventually, she decided to head to the officer’s kitchen she had been shown accompanied the officer’s barracks where she now lived. Perhaps a drink of water would help settle her enough to go back to sleep.

When she arrived, the kitchen light was on. Allura almost turned back; she was in no mood to have to put on her princess mask this early in the morning and the desire to be alone far outweighed her thirst, but after a moment, she heard a familiar voice.

Romelle was in the kitchen, singing softly to herself in a language so familiar and yet slightly off, that Allura almost wanted to cry.

‘ _Hiihuluh no iih siis feri it skuliim.’_

Words were almost the same but in a strange order. Romelle put emphasis on the wrong syllables and added vowels where Allura hadn’t expected any.

_‘Quit upu essiit dusholuaii.’_

She was doing something on one of the kitchen counters, pressing buttons on a machine Allura hadn’t seen before and couldn’t guess the purpose of.

_‘Lekha arhiil arhiiluis kolos alunis um.’_

Her shoulders bounced and her hair – loose for once, possibly due to the hour – wove down her back as she danced to her own voice. Allura watched it shift under the artificial kitchen lights, glowing faintly gold and silver.

The machine beeped and Romelle finished her verse. She turned around to lean against the counter, a steaming cup of something nestled between her hands. She jumped when she looked up and saw Allura, still standing rather dumbly in the doorway.

‘Allura! I didn’t know you were, uh, I didn’t see you there. Uh…’ She buried her face in her mug and took a long sip.

‘What song were you singing?’ Allura asked, finally stepping inside.

Romelle’s cheeks glowed slightly pink for a moment and she averted her gaze. ‘Oh, nothing. Just a silly little love song from the colony. Bandor used to play it all the time. It’s been playing in my ear for hours.’

Allura sighed. ‘I miss music,’ she said. ‘The music here is… different.’

Romelle frowned. ‘I suppose you miss a lot of things, don’t you?’

Allura just nodded. ‘What is this?’ she asked, pointing towards the machine for an easy change of subject.

‘Oh, this?’ Romelle grinned and stepped aside. ‘I believe they call it a coffee maker? Hunk showed me how to use it. It makes a hot drink, almost like tea. You can put milk and this sweet stuff in it too, it’s good.’

Allura took another step towards the counter. ‘May I try it?’ she asked, meaning the machine, but Romelle handed over her cup without hesitation. ‘Oh, thank you.’ She took a sip and almost gagged at the sickly-sweet flavour. ‘Urgh! It’s so sweet! How can you drink this?’

Romelle shrugged. ‘It's actually very bitter, I just put the sweet stuff in it.’

Allura frowned. ‘How much?’

‘Hmm… maybe five of these?’ she held up a small spoon dusted with white crystal powder.

Allura chuckled lightly. ‘I think I may start with one and go from there,’ she decided. She glanced at the coffee maker. ‘How do you make it go?’

Gleefully, Romelle leapt into a detailed explanation of the inner workings of the device. She talked so quickly when she was excited, Allura had learned, and her enthusiasm lit up her entire face. It was distracting, being so close to something so dynamic and bright. Allura may have missed a few important pieces of information as Romelle talked her through the workings of the machine.

Her own steaming mug of the drink was pushed into her hand and Allura only had a vague impression of how it got there. Romelle dumped a very full spoonful of the sweetener into the cup and stirred. ‘Try it,’ she suggested.

Allura did as instructed and found the flavour much more interesting with less sweetener in it. It tasted good. ‘Mmmmm,’ Allura smiled and breathed in the smell. She didn’t know how to describe it- she had never smelled anything like it before, but it cleared her head a little, enough that another question came to mind.

‘What are you doing up at this hour?’

Romelle shifted uncomfortably and stared down at the cup back in her hands. ‘Everything that happened with Bandor and my family, I dream about it sometimes.’

‘You have nightmares,’ Allura said.

‘Yes, I suppose,’ she agreed. ‘When I do, I come here and have a drink. It comforts me, somehow.’ She set her now empty cup in the sink. ‘Why are you up?’

Allura shrugged. ‘I couldn’t sleep.’

‘Nightmares?’

Allura shook her head. ‘I just miss home.’

Romelle frowned, nose scrunching up in thought. Suddenly, like a light turning on, she grinned. ‘Come with me,’ she said and grabbed Allura’s hand.

Allura allowed herself to be dragged down the halls, half focused on keeping the cup still in her hand steady enough she didn’t spill coffee everywhere. Romelle’s enthusiasm was infectious, and Allura finally let a giggle escape as they passed through a door and found themselves on the roof.

It must have been later than Allura thought. The night was still dark, stars spilling across the sky in a bright arc, but in the distance, colour was starting to bleed back into the desert near the horizon.

‘My mother loved stargazing,’ Romelle whispered. Something about the still night air demanded a quiet reverence. ‘Even though the stars a different, I still feel closer to her when I come up here and watch.’

Allura smiled. ‘Mine too,’ she murmured. ‘We would go up to the tallest spire of the castle on Altea when I was young and try and guess where my father and Voltron had gone to that time. I’d point to a star and say, “there he is” and she’d laugh and we’d wave at him.’ The memory clawed at her chest. She could almost feel her mother’s arms around her shoulders, hugging her tight against the night-time chill. For a moment, she was back on Altea, gazing up at the stars, waiting for her father to come home. The feeling was so visceral that it wasn’t until she felt something squeeze her hand that she came back to Earth, and the feeling of missing her parents hit her in a wave.

She tried to bite back the first sob as it tore up her throat and closed her eyes against the tears, but it was no use. She was still recovering from the last battle that had nearly killed her and her friends, she was so, so far away from home that she felt the ache all the way down in her bones and she was so, so _tired_ of having to be strong, to be a princess, to keep going for the sake of the mission and this quiznacking war.

Arms circled around her waist. A hand guided her face towards a shoulder and Allura let herself cry. Romelle held her tight and fast against the cold desert wind and rubbed up and down her back, singing that same song from earlier softly in her ear.

Eventually, they moved to sit curled up on the roof, huddled together as Allura let out all the grief and loneliness she had been holding onto since the Castle was destroyed, since her planet was destroyed, since her mother died. Romelle rocked her gently as her tears slowly ran dry, leaving Allura drained but feeling strangely… light.

‘Allura, look,’ Romelle whispered after several doboshes of silence.

Allura slowly lifted her head and looked where Romelle was pointing.

The desert had transformed. The had begun its ascent in earnest, part of the great glowing ball of light poking over the rocky horizon. The entire landscape was painted in pinks, purples, oranges and golds. Allura stared in silent wonder as this alien landscape came to life before her eyes to welcome another day.

‘This is the best part,’ Romelle whispered and Allura didn’t have to look to see the smile on her face. She did anyway, following some urge she couldn’t name. Romelle’s hair was golden fire under the rising sun, her pale face seemed to glow and her eye scales flashed brightly under the dawn light. She closed her eyes and sighed happily, content just to soak the light into her skin. Perhaps it was the lack of sleep or the strange magic of dawn playing on her mind, but the thought crossed Allura’s mind that Romelle during sunrise was possibly the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.

Allura drank in the view, Romelle’s face bathed in golden light, and the desert landscape laid out behind her, for a long time. Eventually, Romelle opened her eyes and met Allura’s with a gentle smile. ‘Feel better?’ she asked.

Allura nodded and turned back towards the desert. She rested her head on Romelle’s shoulder and fought the urge to let her eyes drift closed.

It wasn’t Altea, but if Allura had to pick a place to land, Earth wasn’t all that bad. Earth had coffee and Romelle and the most beautiful sunrise Allura had ever seen. A part of her would always miss Altea, but sitting on that rooftop, Allura entertained the thought that perhaps another part of her could make a home here, in this pair of arms, under this brilliant golden sun, with that silly love song playing in her ears.

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on [Tumblr](seethestarsalittlecloser.tumblr.com)
> 
> [My Femslash February 2019 prompt list](https://seethestarsalittlecloser.tumblr.com/post/182491058980/almost-2-whole-days-late-but-im-gonna-try-do)


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